


Tales

by DarkIsRising



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Prompt Fic, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, Quiet, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:55:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29709870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkIsRising/pseuds/DarkIsRising
Summary: Prompt:"My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies/Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die"“About time you showed up,” Anakin mutters darkly when he catches sight of a travel-creased Obi-Wan being ushered into the hall for a banquet he’s ten standard hours late for.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 14
Kudos: 55





	Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Firondoiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firondoiel/gifts).



“About time you showed up,” Anakin mutters darkly when he catches sight of a travel-creased Obi-Wan being ushered into the hall for a banquet he’s ten standard hours late for. Anakin is the only one here save the attendants that dart around, silently working around a fleet of droids to clear away picked over plates of food. Large doors line the hall and it’s clear from the murmur of voices drifting in on the soft evening breeze that the festivities have spilled out into the garden. “He’s been out there for hours.”

It’s familiar, this frustration at a master that, if left to his own devices, would amble around the galaxy, meeting people and forging bonds with pathetic life forms forever. Obi-Wan had had thirteen years of shepherding Qui-Gon about when he’d been a padawan and now seven more as a knight whose task it is—between being sent into war zones and keeping the peace with a glowing blue saber in hand— to keep a certain master from wandering off whenever the Council deemed it necessary.

Obi-Wan smooths a thumb across his mouth to hide away a laugh, though Anakin isn’t fooled. His eyes narrow, a glower if ever Obi-Wan’s seen one, and this time Obi-Wan works harder to school his face into a more careful passivity.

“Whatever,” the teenager mutters to himself, unimpressed with Obi-Wan’s self control. “He’s your problem if he stays up so late he’s useless at tomorrow’s treaty negotiations. I’ve got a final to study for before bed.”

“You can stand down now, Padawan. I’m here and will take full responsibility for keeping Master Qui-Gon Jinn in line from here on out.”

“If only,” Anakin says, but this time there’s more than a little humor in his voice. A flash of a smile lights the corners of his mouth and it more than makes up for a miserable shuttle ride in to see it. “I’m really glad you were able to make it out here, Obi-Wan. I’ve missed you.” Something mischievous flickers in Anakin’s dark blue gaze, there and gone before it so much as registers to Obi-Wan’s eye. “He’s missed you, too.” 

Outside is about what Obi-Wan is expecting: manicured shrubs and gentle candlelight. Beautiful, influential beings half-hidden in shadow. Easy laughter shared around one-too-many drinks before the hard work of tomorrow begins in earnest.

Making his way around the garden’s edges, he finally finds Qui-Gon lit by flickering orange flames and listening with rapt attention as an older human weaves him a story.

Qui-Gon collects stories. Huddled around campfires and hearths, large hand wrapped around a mulled mead or a warmed whiskey, Qui-Gon has lost years of his life among the rise and fall of voices that speak their truths and spin tall tales among the stars. Young mothers and veteran soldiers, hotshot adventurers and village shamans, he treats them all with the same gentle reverence. Obi-Wan has often thought that if the Jedi hadn’t needed to change so much with the times—if they could still be the peaceful Order they’d once been rather than the blade of the Senate that they are now—this could have been Qui-Gon’s charged purpose. He could be left alone to wander the galaxy, bearing mindful witness to these stories, setting them to flimsi with the heart of a poet and the care of an archivist. 

Obi-Wan knows better than to interrupt the spell of a story once it’s been cast, so he waits for Qui-Gon to give a small smile and a thoughtful nod before he steps to his side.

“Ah,” Qui-Gon says, voice a smooth rumble in the dark, and Obi-Wan is close enough to smell the bite of liquor that drifts from his crystal tumbler. “And here he is now.”

“I apologize for my delay,” Obi-Wan says with a deferential bow. “There was a faulty hyperdrive on the shuttle, I’m afraid.”

“No worries at all, ser Jedi,” the old man says with a broad smile, gold-tipped teeth winking. “We are honored to have you join us for any length of time.”

“The baron was just telling me about the time you visited his home planet and single handedly evacuated his people from the path of an erupting volcano while fighting back a swarm of locusts. It seems you have become quite the hero on Troger.” 

“I’m not sure about a _swarm_ ,” Obi-Wan says, affecting a tone of self-effacement that has Qui-Gon hiding a smile behind a sip of amber liquid. “I do remember an insect or two.”

Mainly in his hair. In his teeth, also, when he’d had to yell instruction out at the panicking villagers. 

“I expected you to be taller, truth be told.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint, Baron. I suppose as the tales grew I, too, must have grown in both stature and deed.”

“Well,” the baron says, draining his glass with an adept tilt of his head and flick of his wrist. “I’ll be sure to leave that part out when I tell them I have seen Knight Kenobi in the flesh. Gentlebeings,” he says with a slight bow as he takes his leave for the night.

They watch as the baron’s shock-white hair disappears into the dwindling crowd. Some of the candelabras have been burned to nothing and the shadows are longer than they’d been even a moment ago. 

“Am I really that short?” Obi-Wan asks and he can hear Qui-Gon’s snort of laughter.

“Am I really the one you should be asking?” Qui-Gon counters, voice echoing within the depths of his tumbler as he finishes his drink. “I take it Anakin has left me to your care for the remainder of the evening?”

“He has. He said something about studying?”

“AstroNavigation,” Qui-Gon provides. “I offered to help him but he said he’d been warned away from accepting any of my assistance on the subject.”

“Well,” Obi-Wan pulls on his beard to stop the sly smile from blossoming across his face. “I may have told him about the time you helped me study AstroNav and how I subsequently lost my place at the head of the class.”

“How was I to know Nax had been downgraded to a dwarf planet since I last took the class?”

“It’s alright,” Obi-Wan says, patting Qui-Gon’s shoulder with an affectionate hand. “It only happened the year before your padawan braid was cut. I’m sure you would have caught up with the news, eventually. If given a few more decades.”

They end up in Obi-Wan’s assigned quarters, which are a splendor of marble floors and large balconies with curtains that billow as they let in the cool night air.

“Our rooms are much smaller,” Qui-Gon says, leaning on a wall as he appraises the suite. It had become clear to Obi-Wan from the way he’d walked carefully—deliberately— through the halls that Qui-Gon was drunk, though he hid it well.

“I suppose being the hero of Troger has its advantages.”

“Mm,” Qui-Gon agrees with a hum as he pulls Obi-Wan to him for a kiss.

Seven years. They’d been lovers now for seven years, and yet still Obi-Wan’s chest flutters like the beating of an insect’s wings at the first touch of Qui-Gon’s lips to his. He has to stand on the balls of his feet to wrap his arms around Qui-Gon’s shoulders, and he can feel warm palms brace his lower back, protecting him from falling as if Obi-Wan had been the one who’d spent the evening losing himself to words and liquor.

He follows the warmth of Qui-Gon’s tongue, chasing it with his own, and he breaks away to laugh when Qui-Gon lists to the side. He is saved from tipping over by Qui-Gon planting his back against the wall once more.

“You taste like whiskey,” Obi-Wan says, threading his fingers through the soft lengths of Qui-Gon’s hair.

“And you taste like color. Like yellows and oranges and iridescents.”

“How drunk are you?” Obi-Wan laughs. “Will you even be able to get your boots off by yourself?”

“I’m just drunk enough to see the colors of your soul,” Qui-Gon says with far more seriousness than the moment requires. Closing his eyes, Qui-Gon tips his head back and Obi-Wan can’t help but nip at the long line of exposed throat.

In the end, Obi-Wan has to remove Qui-Gon’s boots, kneeling between Qui-Gon’s thighs while the Jedi master perches on the edge of the mattress. To Qui-Gon’s credit, though, he does manage to take the rest of his clothes off with very little assistance.

It’s easy, then, between them: unhurried and languid. Time is a gift that stretches long enough for them to find each other, to touch each other, to kiss each other, and to rock into each other until they fall into stillness—wrapped together and silent.

“I missed you,” Qui-Gon says at last, hand stroking the length of Obi-Wan’s spine.

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan responds, smiling into the dark. “I heard tell of something to that effect.”


End file.
